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I was reflecting recently on my ancestors leaving their homeland in ITALY some 106 years ago...!!!

Actually, my Grandfather, whom I never met (he died when my father was 10 years old), landed at Ellis Island on March 17, 1906...!!!How ironic, I thought, to have landed on the shores of a New Land on the feast of Saint Patrick, patron Saint of The Irish, who would be the main group to ridicule and taunt this next generation of Italian Immigrants as they settled their families in this great Country of ours...!!!

It was the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the hay day of the Industrial Revolution, and America was enacting special immigration laws making it easy for laborers, skilled and unskilled, to assist them in developing this land of opportunity...Railroad Systems, Steel Plants, Automobiles, Airplanes, Tool Manufacturing, Road and Bridge building...and occupations which would support these new industries...Tailors, Barbers, Butchers, Bakers, Farmers, Grocers, etc...

AMERICA, was indeed extending its arms of WELCOME to this latest wave of Immigrants from the Italian Nation...

Why did our ancestors leave such a beautiful place in North Central Italy to risk resettling their families in a New Land and giving up the Culture of centuries of their ancestors...???

Remember, in the early 20th Century most people in the World were still illiterate, uneducated, unable to read or write, and were being asked to make the switch from a rural, farm based, bucolic existence to a factory, assembly line based, capital driven system...

Since this post is not intended to be a treatise on the merits or downsides of labor, industry, progress, capitalism, unionism, or the like...suffice it to say that many of these illiterate immigrants may have turned out to be prophets...Could they have been listening to that ‘wee, small voice’,so characteristic of how God often answers prayer...??? Were they being motivated by a desire to join the adventure, promise, prosperity, freedom, and hope that this new land, AMERICA, offered...

I like to believe that these simple, hard working, family oriented, religious ancestors of mine kept The Lord at the CENTER OF THEIR LIVES...and made decisions reflecting those priorities...In any event, in coming to AMERICA, they avoided 2 World Wars, both fought on their former soil, a world wide flu epidemic which took the lives of millions of Europeans, Fascism, Nazism, Communism, Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin...!!!It seems that as long as we keep God at THE CENTER OF OUR LIVES, we don’t succumb to dumb science, false hope, materialism, diabolic schemes and the like...

The God Whom We Worship is also not without a sense of humor, however...our youngest child, ASHLEY SIENA, was born on August 28...8:28...One of my favorite Scripture Passages from the Book Of Romans...As we prepare to celebrate the Baptism of our youngest Grandchild, the newest Gaspari, MACLYN JANE, this Sunday...COINCIDENCE...??? OR DIVINE PROVIDENCE...!!!